The Hong Kong SFC has issued a warning about fake crypto exchange MEXC
Hong Kong's Securities and Futures Commission (SFC), along with the local police force, has issued a warning about a fraudulent entity posing as the popular cryptocurrency exchange MEXC. The impersonator is said to be deceiving investors and collecting funds.
In a recent statement, the Hong Kong SFC emphasized that it is conducting joint operations with the police force as part of its wider efforts to monitor and investigate the illegal activities of Virtual Asset Trading Providers (VATP).
The regulator said a fraudulent entity operating under the name MEXC was tricking investors into depositing investments into their bank accounts, only to have trouble withdrawing the funds later.
“Victims interested in buying cryptocurrencies on these chat groups were directed to websites operated by MEXC. Victims were then asked to deposit into a bank account set up for investment purposes, but then reported having problems withdrawing funds.”
In addition, the SFC has identified eight websites suspected of being linked to the fraudulent entity. All these websites contain “MEXC” in their domain names, such as “mexczx.icu” and “mexczx.co”.
“The public should be wary of websites with similar domain names that may continue to be created by MEXC,” the statement said.
It was in September 2023 that the SFC will publish a list of licensed, licensed, closed and pending virtual asset trading platforms (VATPs) in Hong Kong to help the public identify potentially unregulated VATPs.
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This comes amid increasing scrutiny of enforcement decisions made by real exchange MEXC in the recent past.
In December 2023, Cointelegraph reported that MEXC had suspended the accounts of several traders and seized their funds. The exchange said the actions were caused by “unusual trading activities”.
On X, the pseudonymous trader Vida claimed to have lost $92,000 in Tether (USDT) tokens in 15 days on the MEXC futures market, following profits from several recent trades.
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